Napoleon's New Orleans

Napoleon in St. Helena was thinking about moving to his house in
New Orleans in America.

Have you been in jail? No. If you were in the jail, you would be thinking
about where to live and what to do after you get out.

Napoleon Bonaparte was confined in the island of St. Helena during his
final years. He died there in 1821.
What was he thinking about? What was his plan after being released from
the island?

He was interested in moving to the former French colonial city of New
Orleans.

After hearing about Napoleon's plan, the mayor of New Orleans offered his
own house to him. Shortly thereafter, Napoleon died in 1821. This house
was thus Napoleon's house to be for a month, but the house in New Orleans
is still the Napoleon House. It is now used as a restaurant for tourists. Let
us look at some photos from this house.

Josephine was Napoleon's first wife, and Napoleon was her second husband.
She came from the Island of Martinique not far from New Orleans. Her father
was the owner of a huge sugar plantation in that island, and was an upper-class
Frenchman.

We asked one of the hotel workers whether she is Napoleon's descendant. She said
No but Josephine, indicating that Josephine came from the island of Martinique.

Desirée and Napoleon in Corsica,
Josephine and Napoleon in Paris.

These two ladies constructed the present dynasty of Sweden. Click here for the story,

"Desire" is also a prominent name in New Orleans. According to the official
tour guide, this word came from a French noble man named Desirée who came
to the French colony of Louisiana with many African slaves to develop the
city of New Orleans. This was how the name was explained by a tour guide
on the Mississippi Cruise boat.

I told her that there is a more interesting
Desirée. We noted that Napoleon had a number of girl friends. Desirée
is the name of his first girlfriend he met at his hometown in Corsica.
When she came to Paris to marry Napoleon, she became disheartened to find
out Napoleon was deeply in love with a widow named Josephine. Desirée thus
had to marry Napoleon's general named Bernadatto, who later was adopted as
the crown prince by the king of Sweden who did not have his own children.

Bernadatto became the king of Sweden, and Desirée became the queen. Their
son, another king of Sweden, married Josephine's granddaughter. Thus, the
present royal family of Sweden consists of descendants of the two ladies very
close to Napoleon, namely Desirée and Josephine.

While there, I met a group of optical engineers who came to New Orleans for
their conference. I asked them whether they know who invented coherence states.
They said Roy Glauber. I then asked whether they hears about the squeezed
state. They said Yes. I asked whether they know who invented the squeezed
state. They said No. I then changed the subject and asked them why this
restaurant is called Desire. They said the desire is a good English word.
I refrained myself from giving a lecture on the history of this word.

When this film was produced, there was a street car line going
though the French Quarter. This line does not exist now. The story
is about some humble people living in the French Quarter. Tennessee
Williams was living in this area when he wrote the story. It is said
that he wrote this story in order to express his own frustration.
Williams became famous after writing this story.

Andrew Jackson

The U.S. Dollar works everywhere in the world. The one-dollar
and five dollar bills contain the portraits of George Washington and
Abraham Lincoln respectively. Alexander Hamilton is on the ten-dollar bill.
Hamilton was
the secretary of the treasury for George Washington.
He worked closely with Washington during their struggle for the Independence.

His statue is at the center of the Lafayette Park in front
of the White House in Washington. The exact copy of this statue is
at the Jackson Square in New Orleans, as you can see from the
following photos.

What does Jackson mean to New Orleans and to the United States?

Americans declared their independence from British colonial rule
in 1779. In 1812, the British government sent troops to the
American continent to reclaim those colonies. They came to Washington
and burnt the White House. This aspect is well known.

Britain also sent troops to New Orleans in order to set up the Mississippi
waterway to America's middle lands. However, in January of 1815, the
American troops destroyed them at a battleground east of New Orleans.
The commander of the American army was Major General Andrew Jackson. This
was the final decisive battle in the
Anglo-American war of 1812-1815. Jackson thus earned his
qualification to become the president of the United States in 1929.

Jackson talking with defiant native Americans.

During this process, Jackson also had to deal with the problems with
native Americans who did not want relinquish their traditional territories.
It is said that Jackson was too harsh on those native Americans. These days,
Americans are debating about whether the human rights were respected when
Jackson negotiated with them.

Indeed, Andrew Jackson was the key person for the United States to extend its
territory to the midwestern region and eventually to the present size.
Sometimes, it is said that Jackson was America's Napoleon.

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is one of the most valuable natural resources of the
United States. Of course, native Americans could have developed their own
civilization along this River as Egyptian did along their Nile River, and
Chinese did along their Yellow River. When Europeans came to the Caribbean Sea
and the Mexican Gulf, they found this river as a crucial
transportation route to the heartland of the North American Continent.

The Mississippi between Minneapolis
and St. Paul in Minnesota.

Let us look at the
map of the Mississippi River from the Wikipedia. The French settlers first set up their community
in New Orleans and Louisiana and extended their influence all the way to Wisconsin
and Minnesota. This is the reason why there are French city names in those areas.

Indeed, there are many books and poems were written about this great river.
It is thus inappropriate for me to give a lecture on this subject. However, I would
like to tell you some stories not known to many people.

This photo was taken at the starting point of the Ohio River. Two other
rivers merge into one river. Next to the water fountain is the former
French military outpost called Fort Duquesne
which became Fort Pitt after the Franco-Anglican war (1756-63).
Here is a
close-up view of the Fort.

The city of Pittsburgh is far away from the Mississippi River, but look at
this map. The French provincial
government of Quebec (in Canada now) set up a military outpost called
Fort
Duquesne in Pittsburgh where two rivers converge into one called the
Ohio River. This
river passes through the states of Ohio and Kentucky, and serves as the
boundary between Illinois and Tennessee before merging into the Mississippi.

Thus, the Mississippi served as the communication route between the
French provinces of Quebec and Louisiana. How do I know this? I spent
my best four years of my life in Pittsburgh as an undergraduate student
at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as CMU).
Click here for my Pittsburgh page. I had
some outstanding physics teachers there.

I think I am the first one to see the correspondence between New Orleans
and the Chinese city of Shanghai. After beaten back by Americans in the
1812 war, the British imperialists turned their attention to China. They
went to China's southern city of Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) and also to
Shanghai, and started selling opium products to Chinese.

The city of Shanghai is the entrance to the Yangtze River. This river
starts from Tibet and divides China into northern and southern
parts, like the Mississippi dividing the United States to eastern and western
parts.

Indeed, the Yangtze, which is also called the Long River in China, serves
as the waterway to the heartland of China from Shanghai. Among the major
cities along this river are Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chongking,
corresponding respectively to New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and
Minneapolis.

The international nature of Shanghai is well known. Chongking is
far away from Shanghai and located in the mountainous south-eastern region
of China. Chongking served as the capital city while being invaded by
Japanese troops from 1937-45. I went there 2014, I took many photos.

This steel structure on Chongking's river bank shows how the
Western bandits appeared to Chinese in that part of the world in the
later 19th Century.

100 years later, a kinder Westerner came to Chongking. He was Henry
Kissinger, who shook hands with ordinary people of China on a Yangtze
cruise boat.

This is a
metal structure depicting Western bandits
who came on a steel ship along the Yangtze River in the 19th Century.
Chongking from Shanghai is as far as Minneapolis is from New Orleans.
The Yangtze River played the role of Mississippi.

One hundred year later, there was a kinder Westerner who came to
China in 1972. His name is Henry Kissinger. This is a
photo of Kissinger
who had a Yangtze cruise boat. He went there after 1980, because the
caption says "former" secretary of state. I was on the same boat in 2014
to notice this photo.

On the bank of the River, I spotted
this young lady
looking into her cell phone. I invited her to have
a photo with me, and she cheerfully agreed. We had
this photo. These two photos show a new suspension bridge
across the River.

In the American Continents, European immigrants constructed the new world.
In China, Westerners came and left their
influences, but the Chinese are building their own new world. You
may
click here to see how China is changing.

Interesting Stories and Photos from New Orleans

The city of New Orleans was created by early French settlers who came to a new
land with African slaves. Their idea was to develop their farm land in the
new continent and bring their product to France to make money. These French
people are called Creoles. They lived in the area now called the French Quarter,

This sign in Bourbon Street in the French Quarter says Louisiana was
under Spanish control from 1762 to 1803. This sign in not accurate.
Napoleon took over Louisiana in 1800 and sold the land to the United
States.

After the
seven years of war between Britain and France, (1756-63). France lost
political control of that area, and Louisiana became a province of Spain in
1762, and remained so until 1800 until Napoleon took back. Napoleon sold
the entire area of Louisiana to the United States. Napoleon needed money to
build his army. This is a sign in the

The province of Quebec was firmly under French control, but French
people in English-speaking provinces were asked to leave after the 7-year
war. They had to go
to Quebec or come to the French community of New Orleans even though the
area was under Spanish control. They are now called
Cajuns.
They did not get along well with the original settlers called
Creoles,
but they managed to live in the same area now called the French Quarter.

There are many interesting places in the French Quarter. The Napoleon House and the
Desire Oyster House are in this Quarter.

It is always fun to meet
interesting people even at market places. I met two ladies. One
from Texas and the other from Washington, DC. I told them I also live
in the DC area, and I thanked the Texan lady for sending good politicians
from Texas. We all laughed.

Bourbon Street is the main pedestrian street in the French Quarter. with many shops, restaurants,
jazz bars. This street is filled with tourists, and you can meet there many
interesting people. The buildings and houses are basically in French style.
However, they seem to have some Spanish touch-ups, since this area was under
Spanish rule for 40 years before 1800 AD.

The restaurant called Bourbon House
seems to be somewhat expensive, but there are many reasonable places to
eat, such as the
Oyster Bar and
Oceana. They all serve excellent sea foods.

There used to be many jazz bars. They now became rock bars
such as this. The statues at the entrance
tells that this place was originally built for a jazz bar. There
are
many people enjoying American music.

Canal Street serves as the western boundary of the French Quarter. Americans
from various places of the United States cane to the City to seek new
opportunities on the West side of this street.

This street is unusually wide, and
there is a good reason. Those French settlers and American new comers did not get
along, and there used to be violent fights especially during the nights. Thus,
they had to be separated with a demilitarized zone between them.

This region became the Canal Street.
I assume this street is called "Canal" because it runs from the Mississippi
River and goes through through the center of the city toward the big lake
called
Pontchartrain. This street is wide and straight, performing
the same function as a canal.

This street now serves as the main business
district of New Orleans,
with luxury hotels, high-rise office buildings, department stores,
as well as specialty stores.

The public transportation along this street is provided by the red/yellow
street cars looking like this, with car
stops like this.
While the street is straight, this photo
shows a curved track. What is this for?

There is another street car line along St. Charles Avenue, which is
perpendicular to Canal Street. The street cars on this line make U-turns
at Canal Street, and
this car is ready to enter the curved track
after discharging its passengers.
Thus, they have to borrow one block of the Canal Street track before going
back to St. Charles line.

Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans as a grandson of an African slave.
During his years (1930-1970), he was as popular as Muhammad Ali.
His recordings are still alive and well. The airport of New Orleans called
"Louis Armstrong International Airport."

Huge saxophone hanging on the outside wall of the hotel Holiday Inn in the
area where jazz music was developed.

American Jazz was
created in New Orleans. How?
Those early French settlers were Catholics. They believed in God, and they thought
their African slaves were also God's children. Thus, they gave every Saturday
afternoon off. They also offered the option of working on Sundays for wages.
Those slaves opted to work on Sundays for money, but they had their free
time on Saturday afternoon to gather together for song and dance. This is how
the American music of Jazz was developed.

Louis Armstrong
was grandson of one of those African slaves. He produced many beautiful
American songs. Let us hear one
of them. Like Einstein, many physicists like
classical music, and despise Jazz music. However, you will change your mind
after hearing Louis Armstrong.

He had his jazz studio in
this building away from the French quarter. I assume therefore that the
African slaves lived in this area.

This Holiday Inn hotel is in the same area. It is decorated by a
huge saxophone,
asserting that this area is the jazz capital of the world.

There used to be many jazz cafes along Bourbon street. For
understandable reasons, they all became rock cafes. Yet, there are still
many jazz bands on the streets of New Orleans. They are like
this.

Photos from the Mississippi River Cruise Boat. There are two major
Mississippi cruise boat companies in New Orleans. One of them is
called Creole Queen, and the other is
Steamboat Natchez. I was one
of them when I went there in May of 2016, I took a number of photos.

Two barges are being pushed by one
engine boat. They seem to carry many containers.

Wherever I go, I enjoy talking with interesting people.
These two senior citizens came from Australia.
They came to see New Orleans and the Mississippi in spite of their difficulty in
walking. They were quite proud of the
Sydney Opera House.

When I went to New Orleans in 1995, I noticed the street cars looking like
those I used to ride in Seoul (Korea) before I came to the United States in 1954.
Those Korean street cars had compressed-air brakes. The brake system consists of
an air compressor, air tank, brake calipers. The pressure in the air tank is
constant, but the pressure in the caliper is controlled by the pressure valve
hand-controlled by the operator of the street car. When the compressor was running,
it makes loud noise sounding like "dalak-dalak-dalak---,"
and the compressor stops when the air pressure reaches the desired level.
Those street cars in Korea were manufactured by Japan's Mitsubishi Company, and they
were brought into Korea before 1935.

When I boarded a New Orleans street car in 1995, I heard the same compressor noise
from the floor of the car. Then I concluded that the Mitsubishi cars in Korea
and those in New Orleans were designed by the same team of engineers. I then looked
at the speed and brake pressure controllers. They were the same as those I used to
see in Korea. Then where were those engineers?

I knew that some of the earlier models of those Mitsubishi cars in Korea had the
speed controllers with the
GE logo, and I assumed that Mitsubishi copied the technology from the General
Electric Company of the United States.

The cover of this circuit breaker says it is made by the General Electric
Company.

One of the new street cars in New Orleans. I was not interested in
them.

Thus, I concluded that both Mitsubishi and New Orleans street cars were designed
by the General Electric engineers. I should then find the trade mark indicating
some parts of the New Orleans car from the General Electric. I looked at the speed
controller of the New Orleans car, but it does not say who made it. I then looked
at everything else in the car, and I noticed that the circuit breaker
hanging above the front window
had a cover saying "General Electric Company." It became very
happy. It was like finding a research result as I expected.

When I went to New Orleans again in May of 2016, I saw new Street cars
presumably with high-tech speed controllers and brake units, but I was not
interested in those high-tech things. I was interested in whether the city
still has those old street cars.

Yes, they are on one of the lines running on St. Charles Avenue, which starts
from the city center to the suburban residential area. Both
Loyola University
and
Tulane University
are on this street.

This 100-year-old transportation system is now one of the
UNESCO World Heritage Sites,
and is providing excellent service to the residents of New Orleans.

Residential area along the St. Charles line.

When I was on one of those old cars in May of 2016, I asked one of the passengers
whether he uses this street car for going to work everyday. He said No. He rides
this car occasionally to hear the rhythm coming from the bottom of the car. I then
asked him where the noise comes from. He said he does not know, but he likes it
because it refreshes the memory of those good old days.

When I was 12 years old in Korea, I was intensely interested in the
same kind of noise. After spending several months, I figured out that the brake
system works like this.

When I was 12 years old, I knew how tires are inflated, and how the bullet
gains its speed inside the rifle. I even figured out how the
M1 Garand of the U.S. Army
reloads itself. Yet, I did not have the concept of pressure. Indeed, I was
a very dangerous engineer.

Before Herman von Helmholtz (1847), people did physics without the concept
of energy conservation. Leonard da Vinci invented many machines which violated
the conservation of energy. Because his inventions did not work, he decided to become
an artist.

For many centuries, astronomers believed that the orbits of the sun or planets were
perfect circles even though the geometry of ellipse was readily available.

Question. Are they two different limiting cases of the same
Lorentz-covariant entity?
Click here.

These days, the proton is a bound state of the quarks.
When Einstein and Bohr got together, they could have talked about moving
hydrogen atoms in the Lorentz-covariant world. But they did not because moving
hydrogen atoms were unthinkable at that time.

The situation is quite different these days. The proton is a bound state
like the hydrogen atom. The high-energy accelerators produce proton
moving with the speed very close that of light.

Yes, we have been making
efforts to understand those protons with relativistic speed, and there are
millions of papers written on the subject. Yet, most of the authors
write their papers without the very essential concept of Lorentz covariance.

It is just like for a 12-year-old boy trying to understand how the compressed
air bake works without the concept of pressure. Am I insulting my colleagues
in high-energy physics? No. I am not the first one to say this. I am simply
translating
what Paul A. M. Dirac told me in 1962. Dirac does not insult anyone, but
he simply tells us the truth.

My grandson is going to become a physicist.

We all respect Richard Feynman. Dirac was talking about him in 1962. Let us
look at
one of Feynman's papers published in 1971. Feynman wrote this paper with his
students, but he should be responsible for what is right and what is wrong in the
paper.

Feynman was right for telling us to use harmonic oscillators instead of Feynman
diagrams for understanding quantum bound states. On the other hand, Feynman
was totally lost on the issue of Lorentz covariance.
Dirac met Feynman in Poland three months before I heard from him about
the concept of Lorentz covariance.
Click here for a story about Dirac and Feynman in Poland.

We all know where Feynman stands in modern physics. It is not enough to say
he was wrong. You have to correct his mistake. For this purpose, I wrote a paper
with my co-authors and submitted it to the Journal of Mathematical Physics in 1978.
The first reference was of course the above-mentioned paper by Feynman et al.

Biedenharn and Hammermesh in Moscow (1990).

However, the referee told us to delete this reference because that paper turns
the history of physics backward. In essence, he was saying the paper is "dangerous."
We thus had to deleted the reference even though we started the paper with the same
set of differential equations as given in Feynman's paper. The referee at that time
was Lawrence Biedenharn, and the editor was Morton Hammermesh. Both of them were
no-nonsense mathematical physicists. Click here
for the paper which appeared in JMP in January of 1979.

Enjoy your summer months. I am leaving next for Europe to sped three weeks
there. I expect to see you some of you. Enjoy your summer months!!

Y.S.Kim (2016.6.16)

I have many more photos from New Orleans. I will post them when I have time.
Please come again.